Allan Ramsay Poems

Allan RamsayAllan Ramsay (October 15, 1686 – January 7, 1758) was a Scottish poet.
Allan Ramsay was born at Leadhills, Lanarkshire to John Ramsay, superintendent
of Lord Hopetoun's lead-mines and his wife, Alice Bower, a native of Derbyshire.
He was educated at the parish school of Crawford, and in 1701 was apprenticed to
a wig-maker in Edinburgh. He married Christian Ross in 1712; a few years after
he had established himself as a wig-maker (not as a barber, as has been often
said) in the High Street, and soon found himself in comfortable circumstances.
They had six children. His eldest child was Allan Ramsay, the portrait painter.
Ramsay's first efforts in verse-making were inspired by the meetings of the Easy
Club (founded in 1712), of which he was an original member; and in 1715 he
became the Club Laureate. In the society of the members he assumed the name of
"Isaac Bickerstaff," and later of "Gawin Douglas," the latter partly in memory
of his maternal grandfather Douglas of Muthill (Perthshire), and partly to give
point to his boast that he was a "poet sprung from a Douglas loin." The choice
of the two names has some significance, when we consider his later literary life
as the associate of the Queen Anne poets and as a collector of old Lowland Scots
poetry.
By 1718 he had made some reputation as a writer of occasional verse, which he
published in broadsheets, and then (or a year earlier) he turned bookseller in
the premises where he had hitherto plied his craft of wig-making. In 1716 he had
published a rough transcript of Christ's Kirk on the Green from the Bannatyne
manuscript, with some additions of his own. In 1718 he republished the piece
with more supplementary verses. In the following year he printed a collection of
Scots Songs. The success of these ventures prompted him to collect his poems in
1722. The volume was issued by subscription, and brought in the sum of four
hundred guineas. Four years later he removed to another shop, in the
neighbouring Luckenbooths, where he opened a circulating library (the first in
Scotland) and extended his business as a bookseller.
Between the publication of the collected edition of his poems and his settling
down in the Luckenbooths, he had published a few shorter poems and had issued
the first instalments of The Tea-Table Miscellany and The Ever Green (both
1724-1727). The Tea-Table Miscellany is "A Collection of Choice Songs Scots and
English," containing some of Ramsay's own, some by his friends, several
well-known ballads and songs, and some Caroline verse. Its title was suggested
by the programme of The Spectator: and the compiler claimed the place for his
songs "e'en while the tea's fill'd reeking round," which Addison sought for his
speculations at the hour set apart " for tea and bread and butter."
In The Ever Green, being a Collection of Scots Poems wrote by the Ingenious
before 1600, Ramsay had another purpose, to reawaken an interest in the older
national literature. Nearly all the pieces were taken from the Bannatyne
manuscript, though they are by no means verbatim copies. They included his
version of Christ's Kirk and a remarkable pastiche by the editor entitled the
Vision. While engaged on these two series, he produced, in 1725, his dramatic
pastoral The Gentle Shepherd. In the volume of poems published in 1722 Ramsay
had shown his bent to this genre, especially in "Patie and Roger," which
supplies two of the dramatis personae to his greater work. The success of the
drama was remarkable. It passed through several editions, and was performed at
the theatre in Edinburgh; its title is still known in every corner of Scotland,
even if it be no longer read.
Ramsay wrote little afterwards, though he published a few shorter poems, and new
editions of his earlier work. A complete edition of his Poems appeared in London
n 1731 and in Dublin in 1733. With a touch of vanity he expressed the fear lest
"the coolness of fancy that attends advanced years should make me risk the
reputation I had acquired." He was already on terms of intimacy with the eading
men of letters in Scotland and England. He corresponded with William Hamilton of
Bangour, William Somervile, John Gay and Alexander Pope. Gay visited him in
Edinburgh, and Pope praised his pastoral--compliments which were undoubtedly
responsible for some of Ramsay's unhappy poetic ventures seyond his Scots
vernacular. The poet had for many years been a warm supporter of the stage. Some
of his prologues and epilogues were written for the London theatres. In 1736 he
set about the erection of a new theatre, "at vast expense," in Carrubber's
Close, Edinburgh; but the opposition was too strong, and the new house was
closed in 1737. In 1755 he retired from his shop to the house on the slope of
the Castle Rock, still known as Ramsay Lodge. In this house, called by his
friends "the goose-pie," because of its octagonal shape.
He is buried at Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh.